alt Hacker NewsYou have to understand that drugs roughly break down into two categories IMO: the touchy-feely stuff that creates empathy and kindness and healing on the one hand. On the other hand you’ve got stuff that makes people “hard-charging” — going off and doing a thing without thinking it through, with a tinge of anger, fury, unstoppable raw power. Think: cocaine, booze, caffeine and any other stimulants. These reduce empathy and create problems for people.
These two camps are pretty wildly opposed! If I had to guess, I’d bet my money on the people in power liking and using the hard charging stuff while loathing the touchy feely stuff.
All this feels a bit trite, over-simplified, and maybe even a but concocted on my part. But after a lifetime of being around these drugs, it fits well with my experience.
I’d add, too, that the book “Chasing the Scream” gives a better perspective on drug laws & their origins, which really began much earlier than the 1970s.
It's oversimplified in terms of the drug landscape; fentanyl != meth != alcohol, and the reasons people use them are different. You could simplify it as escapism but you'd be incorrect. Or rather, where do people want to escape to? That has little to do with the racism of the 1970s when interracial marriage was literally illegal though which is when the original drug war and those laws date back to.